World Civil Society and Activist Identity in Japanese Environmental Smos

Globalization can standardize the way people interpret their social worlds and act in them. Norms such as environmental protection, human rights and democracy have become more widely accepted. The concept of World Civil Society describes how increased civic communication across boundaries generates political opportunities for citizen groups by creating pressure towards national governments to abide by international norms in a variety of fields.

In this paper, the formation of activist identities within the Japanese Environmental SMOs is studied against the backdrop of global diffusion of norms, ideas and forms of action as well as Japan’s role in the international community. Globalization supports activist identity in Japan: Japan’s wish to become a recognized and actively contributing member of the international community creates ties with a normative community that many activists can readily relate to.

As Japanese social movement organizations have traditionally derived their strength from their unique ties with the local communities, it is important to ask how the local and the global interact in the processes of civic mobilization and formation of activist identities. Are we observing increased glocalization, or the development of genuinely cosmopolitan ethos and global mentalities?

Awareness of global environmental problems transformed significantly during the so-called environmental boom of late ‘80s and early ‘90s. The 1990s have at the same time been called the era of the emergence of Japanese civil society. My paper discusses how the Western-style environmentalism influenced the Japanese environmental movement at two points of time: the environmental boom of the ‘90s, and post-3/11 era–and how it interacted with the indigenous elements therein. The approach is micro-sociological: I study how environmental activists represent themselves and their role in society in life-story interviews. What role does the juxtaposition of Japaneseness and foreignness have in these discourses? Is there room for cosmopolitan identities?